Can the death of a single person be enough to bring about the end of the world? Sieg Wahrheit, Victor Delacroix, and Siela were once proud members of the Order of St. Overia. Champions of the people, they brought peace and order to the lands. But everything changed on that faithful night they saved an evil force from being unleashed upon the world. The trio saved countless lives, but victory came at a terrible cost. Siela was murdered.

Devastated by the loss of his beloved Siela, Victor becomes increasingly unstable. He eventually steals the Apocrypha of Yzarc, a tremendously powerful artifact, from the order. The order suspects this is only the beginning. Victor is most likely to claim two more equally powerful artifacts. The combined power of these items is enough to merge the physical world with the realm of spirits. Driven insane by his desire to revive Siela, if Victor is allowed to complete the ritual, the entire existence could be plunged into chaos and humanity could perish.

In typical video game fashion, instead of summoning a huge army or at least a team of warriors to stop Victor and his hordes of minions, the Order sends a single man. It is up to Sieg Wahrheit, the knight of the dark glyphs, to stand against an endless sea of monsters and stop the madman. Fortunately, Sieg is not completely alone in his quest. The glyphs in his possession allow the young man to summon and control mystical creatures, known as legions to fight by his side.

The combat system in Chaos Legion can certainly be entertaining. When a legion is not summoned to fight beside Sieg, its magical power enchants his sword. In this state, Sieg is quite powerful and can easily take on a small number of enemies. However, when massive numbers of monsters start to overwhelm him, Sieg can summon a legion to the battlefield. The members of the legion surround Seig. Each different legion has a specialty. While the Guilt legion can wreak havoc on the enemies with its swordsmen, the Arrogance legionnaires protect Sieg and keep him from receiving damage. The electrical attacks of the Flawed legion are particularly effective against metallic creatures whereas the brute power of the Hatred region brings death to organic foes.

Sieg can have up to two legions equipped at any given time. Players are only allowed to change equipped legions during the intermission between each stage. Different situations in the game will be easier to overcome if you have the right legion equipped. For instance, the archery of the Malice legion can be very helpful against fast moving metallic enemies. On the other hand, when dozens of foes charge at you, the Guilt legion can easily keep the opponents at bay and greatly reduce the number of enemies you will have to fight directly.

Sieg’s ability to use special legion attacks or keep the legion summoned on the battlefield depends on the amount of soul energy he has available. Each time Sieg or a legionnaire strikes or kills an opponent, a small amount of soul energy is released. Sieg’s glyphs automatically absorb this energy and sustain the legion. If Sieg ever completely runs out of soul energy, the legion becomes temporarily unavailable. Sieg has to fight on his own for a while and recover a certain amount of soul energy before he can summon the legion again.

The equipped legions also gain experience points as you go through each level. At the end of the level, you can spend the experience to improve the legion in different ways. You can upgrade the number of legionnaires summoned, the legion’s attack or defense power. You can also unlock additional moves that Sieg can execute. For instance, once the Flawed legion has enough experience, you can unlock the double jump. Eventually, by spending enough experience points, it is possible to make these special moves available even when the legion that grants them is not equipped.

Unfortunately, players will quickly recognize that there is nothing more to the game besides the action elements. The entire game is a shallow sequence of rooms chock full of monsters. To proceed from one room to the next, you either need to annihilate all the enemies or specific target creatures. Chaos Legion does excel at throwing a truly remarkable number of enemies against Sieg at once. There will be times where your screen will be literally full of dozens of enemies you will have to eliminate.

Initially, the idea of tackling such a large number of enemies at the same time is very entertaining. However, as you proceed through the game, the experience becomes terribly repetitive and downright boring. Instead on enjoying the combat and having fun unleashing the abilities of your legions, you might find yourself desperately charging at the target creatures to clear the room as fast as possible. The only breaks you will get from the abysmally mindless action are the boss fights. Chaos Legion does feature a number of creative and amusing boss battles. However, there are absolutely no puzzles in the game. Besides finding out how to defeat each unique boss, the only thing you will have to figure out is the most efficient way to clear a given room.

Chaos Legion also features a miserably small amount of exploration. Most of the time, once you clear an area, there will only be a single path to proceed. Sieg can occasionally go into a small room and fight a few extra monsters for a bonus item, but this is no substitute for a greatly designed level that is fun to explore. Coupled with an absolutely inexplicable lack of puzzles or any other kind of challenge besides the plain action, Chaos Legion boils down to an extremely linear game.

Chaos Legion is a difficult game to recommend to many gamers. If you are looking for a good story, while you will find a fairly solid premise at the beginning, the lack of significant plot development and character depth will disappoint you. If you are looking for an intellectual challenge or at least interesting locations to explore, the bland levels and endless action in Chaos Legion will make for a miserable experience. However, if you enjoy the occasional pure action game and just want to spend a few hours hacking and slashing your way through throngs of monsters, Chaos Legion might have something to offer. The interesting legion system and the colorful boss fights might be enough to keep you entertained for some time. Unfortunately, even among pure action games, Chaos Legion is far from being the best offering. There is just not enough depth to the game to offer lasting value and keep you coming back for more. Chaos Legion will probably be a game that will simply sit and gather dust on the shelf after you play through it for the first time.